


Tangled Web

by Amity_who



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: AU, M/M, SecretSaito2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 08:36:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17220557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amity_who/pseuds/Amity_who
Summary: An AU origin story for Arthur and Eames





	Tangled Web

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deinvati](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deinvati/gifts).



> From Onceinabloodmoon: Profound apologies to my Secret Saito recipient for the G rating. I'm pants at writing sex scenes. I'll do my best to find a smut subcontractor before I post again.

“So you and Arthur knew each other before Inception, right?” asked Ariadne. She and Eames were catching up in a small, steamy, fragrant patisserie on the Left Bank, gossiping, sipping coffee, and munching on mille-feuille.

Eames smiled. “So it’s ‘once upon a time’ you want, is it?”

Ari lifted one shoulder. “It just seemed like there was a lot of, um, context there, you know?”

“Yes. Yes, there was definitely context.’

Eames stirred his coffee for a while, remembering.

“Well, if you must know, I extracted him.”

“No! Are you kidding me?”

Ariadne seemed suitably impressed. Or horrified.

“In all fairness I didn't know anything about him at the time. Not him or the great and powerful Dom. You Yanks and we Brits started experimenting with dreamshare at about the same time, but independently. Military applications, of course. I was on my way out of the British service, when Miles published his research. I’d begun to branch out into some other sidelines, but I stuck around long enough to learn what I needed to.” He glanced at her with a smirk.

“Yeah, sidelines. Got it.” Ari rolled her eyes, but fondly.

“Prim and proper Arthur had his own sidelines, I’ll have you know. Anyway. he had something very valuable that I needed. He was on his own then. This was pre-Mal. I honestly think he’d never have given the Knob the time of day were it not for her. Although why he stayed on with him after he murdered her is beyond me.”

“Eames! Dom didn’t murder her!”

“But he did, didn’t he. In a way. He took her into Limbo and incepted her, made it impossible for her to distinguish reality from dreams. He drove her to suicide.” Eames wasn’t often stern, but he was now.

“I think it’s a bit more nuanced than that, Eames. I don’t think he’s really so bad.”

“No, of course not. If one can overlook the psychotic irresponsibility, he’s not a bad chap at all.”

“Okay. Whatever. Go on with your story, please.”

“Right. So, Arthur had something I'd promised to obtain for some rather importunate individuals, the Karmazin cartel, stay clear of them, dear heart, should they ever approach you, uncivil lot, and since I didn't know Arthur yet, and since I was a bit strapped for funds, it seemed more expedient to simply take the location of the objects from his mind rather than try to negotiate for it.”

“And you thought that would actually work.”

“As I said I didn't really know Arthur then. His reputation was a bit sketchy, but being young and a bit brash myself, if you can believe that, I assumed he wasn't something I couldn't handle.”

Ari snorted.

“Well live and learn. Right?” Eames grinned.

Eames set his napkin on the table and reached into his jacket for his wallet.

“Oh no you don’t,” she said, making gimme hands at him. “I want the gory details.”

They were bound to be gory. In fact, how was Eames even alive. 

Eames hesitated, then sighed. “Not all the gory details, love. It’s not something I’m entirely proud of, to be honest. Suffice to say that after doing a bit of research, I’d found that Arthur and I had a particular young man in common. And I figured I could forge him well enough to get past Arthur’s defenses. The gossip was that Arthur’d been rather fond of the tosser.”

Ari’s recoil would probably have been imperceptible to anyone else, but one didn’t become dreamshare’s premier forger without an eye for minutiae. 

Late in the game to develop a tender conscience about other people’s opinions, Eames mocked himself. Still. Ari. 

They were quiet a moment, contemplating each other. 

Ari squeezed his hands. “Thanks for the coffee, Eames,” she said as she rose to leave. “I’ll see you guys for dinner tomorrow night, right?” Was her bright smile ever so slightly forced?

Eames held her jacket for her, then wound her scarf around her neck. “Yes, of course, Ari dear. We don’t see nearly enough of you. Eight-ish?”

They kissed cheeks, and Eames watched her through the window as she walked away down the boulevard. He sat down again and asked for another coffee from the server.

Arthur. How had Arthur gained such a fearsome reputation, Eames wondered. Even Ariadne half believed in it, and she knew him. Arthur was a reasonable enough fellow. Not averse to a bit of violence if absolutely necessary, of course, but neither was he the Terminator. Bit of a PR marvel actually, was their Arthur. 

Valuable that. Camouflage. A carefully-constructed pattern of misdirection. A forgery of sorts. 

A good one, Eames thought, and necessary after Eames had finished blundering through his life. Even now he felt a hot flush of shame thinking about it.

-

“Really? Is that what he told you?” Arthur sighed. “Eames’ memory is highly selective and not entirely trustworthy. You know that, right?”

“I should have known,” Ari huffed. “I’m going to give him such a punch.”

“Nah, don’t bother. I punched him enough for both of us at the time.” They’d spent the afternoon shopping. Arthur held a Hermes scarf next to Ari’s cheek and smiled. “I like this one. It looks good.”

“Did you shoplift that? Arthur!” 

Ari loved the way Arthur’s eyes all but disappeared when he grinned. And the dimples. The dimples were the best.

“Of course not. But that would be a very Eamesian thing to do, wouldn’t it?”

“Why is Eames so … “

“Impossible? Infuriating? Punchable?” Arthur smiled.

“I was thinking attractive, but those work, too.” Ari looped her arm through his. “So what really did happen between you two? Back in the day.”

“We were young. Bulletproof. Well, we thought we were anyway. Dreamshare was the Wild West back then. People stealing PASIVs, mixing up dream compounds in their basements, trying any crazy thing. Testing the limits. People died sometimes, in the early days, finding out what worked, what was possible. Dom and Mal did a lot to bring some order to the experience. Things were better after they got involved.

“But this was before. I’d heard rumors of this amazing forger, one of the first really good ones, but I didn’t know him. Didn’t know it was Eames. I thought I was so badass. We ran into each other in a bar in Nairobi, he chatted me up, he was thinner then, but just as cocky and full of himself. God, I was green. He roofied me basically. I never saw him do it. Never saw his hands.”

Ari was quiet. This is what they did. This was what dreamshare was all about. But it seemed worse, awful somehow, when someone you cared about was the mark.

“World building wasn’t Eames’ strong suit, never has been. But he did a fairly decent job. I hadn’t seen Philip in a few years, but he had him down pat. His speech and his mannerisms, you know? I was so caught up in Philip that it took a while to realize I was in dreamstate. That’s the problem about tagging someone who’s in the game. You just can’t fool them for long. Plus, Eames made a crucial mistake. He wasn’t as slick then, didn’t have the experience he has now. He knew Philip too, intimately, right? But he knew how Philip was with him, not how Philip was with me. I think we all have different patterns of behavior with different people, you know? Anyway, the Philip that he was forging began to diverge from the Philip I knew. Still, he got what he’d come for before I realized the difference.”

Ari squeezed his arm with hers. “Eames said you’d loved this guy.”

Arthur glanced at her. “Did he.”

They walked for a bit, not speaking.

“I don’t know. Maybe I did. It doesn’t matter now.”

“How did you manage to forgive him?”

“You mean after I punched him?” Arthur was smiling at her again.

“Yeah. After.”

“I had a quarter million dollars of uncut diamonds that he’d promised this bunch of sleazeball Ukrainians. Even then, Eames had the worst cons running. Honestly, where does he find these people? He pulled the diamonds’ location from me by having ‘Philip’ convince me he’d be killed if he didn’t turn them over.”

“So you told him.”

“Yeah.” Arthur was quiet now, remembering. 

Please, Arthur, if you ever loved me, help me.

“Like I said, Eames wasn’t at the top of his game back then. He faltered. And I knew I’d been conned. And then the race for the diamonds was on.” 

What had Eames seen, Arthur wondered. No, he knew. Eames couldn’t have known that Philip was dead. No one knew. Arthur had buried Philip’s body himself, one of those early victims of bootleg Somnacin. Eames had such an amazing talent. He’d brought Philip back to him, alive and vibrant and perfect. Arthur had wanted to suspend disbelief, had been eager to, just to have Philip back again, to talk to, to hold, just more time with him, please. That’s what Eames had seen. That’s when the forge collapsed. And then Arthur remembered, and all the grief and pain rushed back in.

Arthur had beaten him, all right, had wanted to beat him to death, but Eames hadn’t fought back, hadn’t defended himself. For all his poker face and Teflon veneer, Eames was actually a fairly decent guy, and he was so genuinely ashamed and sorry, that Arthur could see it, and he was so exhausted. All the emotion, all the rage just fizzled out.

In the end, he hadn’t given Eames the diamonds, but he had eventually helped him plan another con that netted the Ukrainians even more, so they were willing to be forgiving, after they’d beaten on Eames themselves for a while. As far as Arthur was concerned, he had it coming.

How had he managed to forgive him? A little at a time, for lack of anything better, because dreamshare was lonely. Eames wasn’t Philip. He never would be. Arthur was never going to permit that to happen again. But they suited each other. They were not too much to each other; they were just enough.


End file.
